


In a Hole in the Ground There Was Silence

by popsicletheduck



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety, Fluff, Gen, Insomnia, bruce is sometimes a good dad, coping through fiction, tim is a massive nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popsicletheduck/pseuds/popsicletheduck
Summary: During a late night wander through the Wayne Manor library, Tim discovers something unexpected.Title comes from the opening chapters ofThe HobbitandThe Name of the Wind.





	In a Hole in the Ground There Was Silence

The Manor was quiet.

Well, the Manor was always quiet.

The Manor was more quiet than usual.

Even when there wasn’t any noise, simply knowing that people were around seemed it make it less quiet, somehow.

But now everyone was asleep, and the quiet seemed to grow louder in their absence.

Tim knew he should sleep too. But he just...couldn’t.

Not tonight.

Or, well, this morning.

He was simultaneously too restless and on edge to sleep and too exhausted to work, so here he was, wandering around the Manor at four in the morning.

Part of him was seriously considering going down the Cave, hopping on his bike and going back to his apartment, but Alfred had promised chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and there was no way he was going to miss that. 

So for the moment he was stuck here, in the cavernous empty rooms and endlessly long halls of Wayne Manor.

He ended up in the library. Of course he did. He always ended up in the library.

Tim had lost track of the amount of time he’d spent in this room. Hours upon hours. Days upon days. Surrounded by books about...well, just about everything. Chemistry and military strategy and acting. Philosophy and physics and psychology and physiology. Architecture and surgery and business. Technology and history and law.

He took his time, wandering up and down the rows of bookshelves, taking in the familiar patchwork of titles and spines, the scent of paper and age and knowledge.

He almost missed them. He only caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of his eye and he almost kept walking, but something made him stop. Maybe it was the way their battered state contrasted with all the other well-kept books. Maybe it was their familiarity. Maybe it was the just the shock of seeing them. Seeing them again. Seeing them here.

_ The Lord of the Rings _ . And  _ The Hobbit. _ And  _ The Silmarillion. _

And not just any copies.

His copies.

He hadn’t even known they were still around. A few years ago, Dick had gotten him a fancy, leather-bound set for Christmas, and then Tim had lost his original copies in a move (although which move he couldn’t quite remember). He had assumed they had been thrown out.

But no. Here they were, in the Wayne Manor library. With their cracked spines and torn covers and bent pages and coffee stains.

These were the books he’d stuffed into backpacks and crammed into lockers. These were the books he’d tried to hide inside his textbooks to read during class (it rarely worked). These were the books he’d read before he’d confronted Bruce and after his first day of training and both before and after his first patrol.

These were the books he’d read obsessively, over and over, curled up on sofas and chairs and the floor, at computer consoles and desks and kitchen tables. These were the books he’d practically memorized. Because if a hobbit could save the world and a Ranger could be king, why couldn’t Tim Drake, a nobody, be Robin?

These were  _ his _ books, and here they were, with Aristotle and Shakespeare and...Garth Nix?

It wasn’t just  _ The Lord of the Rings _ . It was a whole shelf. Some titles he’d never heard of, and some he had.  _ Graceling. The Demon King. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. A Song of Ice and Fire. The Well at the World’s End. Sabriel. Eragon. The Name of the Wind. _

There weren’t a lot of novels in the library. The few that were there were classics. Dickens, Bronte, Poe, Dumas. Nothing published later than the turn of the century. So why, why was there an entire shelf of fantasy novels?

Maybe there was an answer in the books. Tim grabbed one off the shelf at random ( _ The Name of the Wind _ , he noted) and flipped it open.

_ "It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts. _

_ The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees…" _

 

Sunlight filtered lazily through a crack in the curtain. TIm rolled over and rubbed his eyes. God, what time was it even? He must had fallen asleep reading. He’d gotten so involved in Kvothe’s story…

What. He was in bed? What…?

When…?

How…?

...Where was the book?

There. Sitting on top of the stack of case files he had piled up on his nightstand, a little white bookmark peeking out between the pages about a third of the way through.

No, not a bookmark. A note.

_ Glad you’re enjoying your books, but next time, maybe try reading in bed so you don’t fall asleep leaning against the bookshelf. _

_ -B _

Tim’s head was spinning. “Your”? Then that shelf...And Bruce...He had...And… It was just too much to process.

He shook his head, trying to straighten out the thoughts flying all of the place in his brain, and in doing so caught sight of the clock.

12:53

Oh man, he hoped he hadn’t slept through Alfred pancakes.

Tim lept out of bed and ran downstairs, his book still firmly in his grasp.


End file.
